The last thing I remembered was his voice saying, “I’ll let you think this over.”
I WOKE UP to the sound of hoarse screaming, and soon realized it was mine. The realization came seconds before the pain did. My head felt like someone was taking a jackhammer to the back of it, and my body felt like it was being pricked by thousands of needles. I automatically tried to move from where I was, but froze at the sound of Collin’s menacing voice.
“Do not move.”
Even though I’d thought my eyes were open, it took force to get them to, and then it was only halfway. I was on the ground in the shower, and Collin was sitting outside it with a gun aimed right at me.
He waved the gun at the rest of my body. “You took too long to wake up. So I thought I’d do it for you.”
It was a few moments before I felt like I could look away from the weapon in his hand; I was worried what would happen the second I did. When I finally managed to tear my eyes from it, I sluggishly looked down, and my eyebrows pulled together. I was covered in ice cubes . . . so much so that I couldn’t see my body, and water was coming down on me from every angle in the shower. After a few seconds I realized I couldn’t feel the water coming down or the ice, and I didn’t understand why I wasn’t shaking.
“You know,” Collin said laughing, “the guy at the gas station asked if I was having a party when I bought all the ice. For some reason that was hilarious to me, because I was planning on announcing your pregnancy at my parents’ anniversary party this week had your appointment gone differently this afternoon. That won’t be happening now. But I guess this is kind of a party, too, if you want to count it as one.”
“H-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-how . . .” I didn’t try to get anything out after that, and it was then that I realized that I was shaking. I was shaking so hard my teeth were actually rattling.
Collin studied me for a few seconds, but then it was too hard to keep my eyes open. “How long have you been out?” he asked, trying to guess my question. “About an hour. How long have you been in the ice shower? About ten minutes, and you’re almost done.”
What felt like seconds later, I was waking up much like I had before. Screaming. This time in agony. The water was hot. Scalding hot. There was still some ice on me, but Collin was pulling me up, and the water felt like it was burning me.
“Don’t show your pain, Harlow,” he reminded me with a gentle voice.
I tried to clench my teeth together, but soon I was screaming again. I didn’t understand why the pain wasn’t stopping. I thought Collin had been pulling me up; I thought I’d been getting out of the shower . . . where had he gone? The hoarse screams continued for a minute before they slowly started dying out, and soon they were gone. I gradually became aware of the fact that my face was pressed against the shower floor, which was now clear of ice, and that I was choking on water . . . but I didn’t care anymore. I wanted to go back to sleep again.
Everything in me hurt. Everything in me ached. Everything in me screamed.
“Good girl, don’t show your pain,” he whispered. The water shut off, and Collin picked me up off the floor again, but I couldn’t stand on my legs, so he pulled me up into his arms. “Let’s get you in bed.”
Collin laid me in the bed without a towel, and wrapped the sheets and comforter tightly around me until all that showed was my face and wet hair. He sat on the edge of the bed as he ran his hand over my hair a few times, and leaned down to kiss my forehead. Without leaning back, he whispered against my skin, “Before you woke up the last time, a friend of the family who works at your doctor’s office called me back. I had her check your records. She backed up your story that you don’t have a prescription for birth control, and that you’ve never had any procedures to prevent a pregnancy.”
I was glad I didn’t have the strength to show a reaction to what he’d said. If I would’ve known that there were family friends in the office, I would’ve never risked getting the implant done there, but I was so grateful for whoever had left it off my records.
“Hadley is safe, too.”
My body relaxed and I felt myself drifting again. “Thank you,” I mouthed before sleep claimed me.
Chapter 11
Knox
Present Day—Richland
I GLANCED AT my phone to check the time again, and finally broke down to call Harlow. She was an hour late. Normally I wouldn’t have waited that long for anyone, and normally I would’ve called if the person I was meeting was a little late, but I already knew how much it scared Harlow to have the phone I’d bought for her. I didn’t want to continuously scare her by reminding her of it every time I started worrying about her.
Tapping on her name, I brought the phone up to my ear and tried to calm the shaking in my arms and legs.
Fall 2010—Walla Walla
I COULDN’T STOP shaking as I waited for her to pick up her phone. The entire last three months had been more of the same: constant bouncing knees and shaking hands; but it was all about to be over soon. Within minutes, I was going to have the girl I’d been waiting for. As soon as I heard her answer the phone, I looked up at her dorm and couldn’t hide the wide smile that spread across my face.
“KNOX, I’M SO sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Harlow whispered into the phone a couple of minutes later.
Didn’t mean for this to happen? The girl I’ve waited for just told me she didn’t wait for me. She apologized to me, this isn’t a joke—this is actually happening. The girl I love doesn’t love me anymore.
“Say something,” she begged.
I worked my throat a few times to make sure I could actually speak before saying anything, but even then, I felt dead when I said, “I will always love you. Nothing can change that. Happy birthday, Harlow.”
I couldn’t end the call fast enough. I couldn’t get away fast enough; but I also couldn’t move.
I don’t know how long I’d been standing there in the rain when someone said, “Whatever you did, that’s a good start, man—but it’s only a start.”
It took a few seconds to comprehend the voice was talking to me. I looked up at the guy walking in my direction away from Harlow’s dorm, and gave him a confused look.
He gestured to the flowers in my hand—red poppies. “You look like shit and you’re holding flowers. It’s a good start, but you’re better off buying something she can show off. Know what I mean? Sure way to make them happy and forget whatever happened.” He laughed and smacked my shoulder as he walked past me, but it was enough to get me to move.
I turned around and headed back toward the parking lot, only stopping to hand over the flowers to the first girl I passed. As soon as I was in my car, I sat there for what felt like hours playing with the ring I’d had in my pocket before finally putting it back in the box it had come in, and started the drive back to Seattle.
I’d known it was crazy, and probably a long shot, but I’d gone to Harlow’s dad a week before she’d left for college to ask if I could marry her. It had been a long talk that had ultimately ended in me promising that we wouldn’t get married until she graduated, among some other conditions, but he’d given me his blessing to ask her after she turned eighteen, and I’d gone to buy a ring that night.
Because I’d known that nothing would come between us. And now, all I wanted to do was blame her dad. The conversation I’d had with him months ago flashed through my mind, and I bit back a curse because I knew this was his fault . . . all of it was his fault.
“I can’t believe I’m about to say this,” Mr. Evans said after long minutes of staring blankly at the floor. “Knox, you may ask her to marry you, but there are conditions.”
I straightened in the chair and tried to contain my smile. “Anything.”
“She needs to graduate before you get married.”
I wanted to remind him that that was another four years away, but still didn’t care as long as it meant she was mine. “Done.”
“And this one might be harder for you . . .”
“Harder than waiting another four years?” I teased, but Mr. Evans didn’t seem to find it funny.
“When she leaves for school in a week, I want her to try to enjoy it.”
“Of course,” I immediately agreed.
Mr. Evans shook his head. “Knox, the wife and I like you. Not many young men would treat our daughter with the respect you have, and that quickly earned our respect. However, we’re worried that her mind is so focused on you that she will miss out on life, which is why we pushed her to go away to school instead of staying in Seattle. If all she thinks about is making it to her eighteenth birthday, then she won’t try to enjoy her time when she is away from you—do you understand?”
“I’m not sure,” I said slowly, but I was worried I did.
“You’ve always given her space, but not the kind of space I think she should have when she leaves. You’ve let her be her own person, but she needs to decide who she is now, and she can’t do that with you always there beside her. She sees her future as Harlow and Knox; I need her to see what it could be as just Harlow. Like I said, the wife and I like you, and I would be glad to have Harlow marry you . . . but I want her to be sure this is what she wants once she finally gets to be on her own and makes her own decisions. I don’t want my daughter to ever look back on her life and regret it. You look confused,” he grumbled, and searched for the words to explain himself.
I didn’t need him to explain more. I got it . . . I just didn’t like it.
“Now, I’m not asking you to push her into dating other guys. Just make sure she enjoys her time there, and lives a normal college student life. The constant phone calls, the flowers—they should be scaled back. Way back. I would ask you not to call her at all, but I don’t think you’d respect that wish, and my daughter may never forgive me for it. And you may not have been dating my daughter the last couple of years, but to everyone else that is what it has looked like, and, son, I don’t want her to go away to school with a boyfriend. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
My heart sank as I realized exactly how far he wanted me to take this. “I can’t . . . I can’t break up with her.”
“I’m just asking you not to be the boyfriend you technically aren’t yet, okay?”
I nodded hesitantly, and he tried to give me a reassuring smile.
“Even though those few months don’t seem like much, those first few months away from home are everything, as I’m sure you remember. So, if you are what she wants once they’re over . . . then you may ask my daughter to marry you. And, Knox, I have no doubt that you will be asking my daughter to marry you.”
I nodded once and shook his hand. I also had no doubt that come Harlow’s eighteenth birthday, I would be doing just that.
But now none of that mattered. Graham and Deacon had been right. All of the waiting, and all of the time spent getting ready for this day, had been a game for Harlow. And now the game was over.
Present Day—Richland
THE SHAKING IN my arms and legs abruptly stopped when the call to Harlow went straight to voice mail. Ending the call, I waited a couple of seconds before tapping on her name again, and held my breath until I got the same result.
“Shit,” I hissed, and dropped my phone onto the table I was sitting at. She’s okay, I chanted to myself over and over again. Give her another thirty minutes.
But after ten minutes and another phone call with the same result, I was running out of the coffee shop and to my truck. I knew I was risking a lot, but I had to know she was okay. After looking up her address, which I’d stored in my phone, and putting it in my GPS, I took off for her house, but slowed to a stop a couple of houses away when I saw two cars parked in the driveway.
My tense grip on the steering wheel loosened, and I blew out a ragged breath. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned, and ran my hands over my face.
I was paranoid. I was turning into a psychotic ex who always thought the worst because of what had happened before. As much as I hated the situation she was in, and as much as I wanted to get her away from her husband, I knew I couldn’t do this to Harlow. And as I gripped my chest, I realized I couldn’t do it to myself. It felt like I was going to make myself have a heart attack with how bad I was stressing over all of this.
She told me she was fine, and would be fine. She probably couldn’t meet me because her plans changed too fast for her to be able to even warn me. And I’d somehow turned that into her needing me to save her. I was beginning to worry about my sanity.
After another look at her house, I turned my car around and headed back to Thatch.
“WHY IS IT we always find you pacing when we’ve come home the last couple of weeks?” Deacon asked distractedly when he came home hours later.
Because Harlow’s husband is home by now. Because she will have hidden the phone I bought her by now. Because now I don’t know what she needed to tell me in person, and I’m back to worrying about her safety when I probably don’t have a reason to. And because now I’m pissed-off that she never warned me she wouldn’t make it to the coffee shop or turned the phone back on to at least let me know she was okay. A laugh that sounded more like a sneer burst from my chest when I remembered: She’s married; she doesn’t have to tell me anything.
I never once stopped pacing during my inner rant, or looked at Deacon, since he usually didn’t stop on the way to his room to wait for an answer, but after a few seconds I realized he was standing there watching me with a worried expression, his phone now forgotten.
The door opened again to Graham, and I sighed in relief when Grey didn’t follow him in. She seemed to only show up recently when I’d seen or talked to Harlow, like she knew I’d done something she’d warned me against, and it was impossible for me to hide things from her.
“Why are we staring at each other?” Graham asked, but before either of us could answer, his eyes narrowed. “Are you murdering the carpet again? Jesus, what is going on?”
I wanted to tell them. Despite how everything had gone down in college, neither of them had gloated or been happy when Harlow had ended things, or when I’d finally gotten on board with what our plan had been all along for college. They’d both been more worried about me than they had in the years leading up to that point, and had even asked if I’d heard from Harlow or if she’d changed her mind a few times before they’d understood not to ever bring her up again.
I knew they were trying to protect me back in college. I knew it now, hated it then, but it didn’t stop me from feeling like one of them was going to unleash some seven-year, built-up wrath on me whenever I even thought about Harlow. And even though Jagger and Grey had warned me to stay away from Harlow, everything was different now that I knew the truth about her marriage.
But I was choking on the words, not sure how to make them come out.
“Christ. Tell me you didn’t, Knox,” Graham said. “Tell me you didn’t get some girl pregnant.”
“Damn it,” Deacon said in a grave tone. “Is it mine? I’m not ready to be a mom or grow a vagina.”
Despite the frustration and worry that had been building, I barked out a laugh, and Graham cracked a smile, but I knew he was still waiting for an answer.
“No, no kids coming.”
Deacon gave Graham an uneasy look, then they both walked over to sit on one of the couches. As soon as they were seated, Deacon said, “We’ve been talking about you and your drastic change the last couple of weeks. You haven’t gone out with us even when you’re not working, you haven’t had anyone over or been anywhere since the one who walked out naked, and this is the fourth time we’ve caught you pacing. So I already texted . . .” He trailed off and looked at his phone to check. “. . . Melanie, and she’s not expecting me anymore. And we’re all going to sit in the living room until you tell us what’s going on.”
Throughout everything he’d said, Graham had sat there nodding, and now they were both looking at me expectantly.
“I don’t know how to,” I admit
ted, and Graham’s brow rose in shock while Deacon looked hurt.
“You’re serious right now?” Deacon asked. “You don’t know how to tell us something? When have we ever not told each other anything, no matter how fucked-up, disgusting, or ridiculous it was?”
“You sound like a girl,” Graham mumbled to Deacon, then cleared his throat and looked back to me. “But he’s right. We’ve been best friends for over a dozen years; we don’t know how to not tell each other things.”
My head was shaking slowly. “You guys don’t understand. It’s not just telling you, it’s what can happen because of telling you. It’s how I’m struggling with this just knowing about it,” I said through clenched teeth, and realized my entire body was vibrating with the need to get Harlow away from her husband. “And it’s also years of not talking about it, and then years before that of the two of you harassing me for it.”
Both looked confused but didn’t say anything, just waited for me to continue even though it took me a couple of minutes of pacing to figure out where to start.
“You know Flynn Doherty?” I asked.
“Nope,” Deacon responded immediately.
“Yes, you do,” Graham said in an annoyed tone.
“Yep,” Deacon amended.
“He’s the Benton County prosecutor,” Graham explained, and Deacon made a face.
“Ah. The guy with the smile and the son.”
I nodded. The prosecutor was known for his too-perfect smile, and his son—who was supposed to be running for something in the near future—had it, too. They were always all over the news together. “Yeah, him. His son’s name is Collin.”
“Cool?” Deacon offered when I didn’t continue, but Graham’s eyes had zeroed in on my hands fisting over and over again.
“Do you remember when I went to Walla Walla for Harlow’s eighteenth birthday?”
Surprise covered both of their faces; they hadn’t expected her name to ever be mentioned again.
To the Stars (Thatch #2) Page 15